


in warm water (swimming down)

by skitzofreak



Series: stardust in your spine [7]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: And a wee bit of smut, Bath, But mostly fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Rated for swearing, Tumblr Prompt, and nudity, finally went back and edited the typos, speed written, unexpected submergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 19:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12261024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: Prompt: Cassian warms Jyn up.





	in warm water (swimming down)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the prompt, [Ivaylo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivaylo/pseuds/Ivaylo).

 

“I,” Jyn announced, stamping her wet boots against the metal floor and glaring at the clumps of dirty snow and ice that piled underneath her heels, “am fucking freezing.” The door to their hotel room creaked open slowly, the slide tracks clogged with ice despite the little heaters built into the doors. It wasn’t that nice of a hotel, just good enough for two middle class tourists on a trip to see their inlaws. Wait, was it Jyn’s inlaws or Cassian’s inlaws? Shit, she kept forgetting. Right, right, it was her inlaws – or rather, Emma Muller’s inlaws, because they were “visiting” Leon Muller’s parents.

“It’s not my favorite planet, either,” Cassian said, shoving his hood back and brushing snow from his shoulders. “But we’re only here one more day.” He followed her into the hotel room and took one last glance down the long, snow-covered balcony, checking to see if anyone was watching them. But while this hotel was fairly popular during summer months, it was almost deserted during the winter. Jyn could see why; it was mostly an outdoorsy, “communing with nature” style of architecture, which meant they had to tromp through a thick layer of snow the moment they stepped out of their room.

“One more day, and then we get to go back to _Hoth_ , where it’s so much warmer,” Jyn said, then paused, looked up at the ceiling, and added dramatically, “Oh wait, no, it _isn’t_.”

“You really haven’t enjoyed this, have you?”

“ _This_ what, Cassian? This planet? This mission? This life in general?” Jyn ripped her freezing, sodden scarf off and chucked it at the floor. Her head throbbed from the cold and the tension in her jaw – shit, she was working herself up to a real fury.

“Are you alright, Jyn?” Cassian raised an eyebrow at her. She scowled at him and opened her mouth to shoot a sarcastic response right back…but then snapped her jaw shut and shrugged instead. _Idiotic_ , she scoffed at herself. _You’ve dealt with worse crap than this._

“We were out there for hours,” she tried to explain, then winced at how whiney she sounded. She was being overdramatic, and much grouchier about their current operation than she normally would be. And really, there _wasn’t_ a good reason for it. They’d already completed all their objectives (and it had been relatively easy, too, just a series of pickups at dead drop points, as easy as their lives ever got). She had some quiet time with Cassian, some personal time to stretch and sleep and sharpen all her knives during the long trip through hyperspace. Nobody she knew had died in almost four months. The Empire had committed no unusual atrocities (that she knew of) in even longer. By almost every metric Jyn used to measure her life, things were pretty good right now.

Yet here she was, cold and cranky and snapping at Cassian.

“I’m going to turn the heater up,” she told him, peeling off her frozen coat and tossing it over the nearest chair.

“I’m not sure that will help,” he said. “It’s not a very good model.”

“Better than nothing,” she muttered, and leaned over to fiddle with the controls on the ancient heating unit.

She paused when Cassian ran a hand down her back, one slow caress from her shoulder blades to the small of her back. He didn’t say anything, but she closed her eyes and sighed slowly. “Fine,” she murmured. “I’m fine.”

He pulled his hand away and passed behind her into the fresher. A moment later, she heard the water running – what made this small, out-of-date hotel so popular was the fact that every room had a water-shower in it. Cassian must be taking a shower to warm himself up. She hoped the water was hot enough. Maybe she should even join him – actually, that wasn’t a bad idea, was it? Even if the water wasn’t very hot, she could find a way to warm the both of them up.

She was stripping off her outer shirt when the fresher door slid open and Cassian walked back out. The water was still running behind him, but he was fully dressed. Jyn paused, puzzled. “Cassian?”

“Good,” he said briskly. “Your boots are off. Here, let me - ” and he put his hands on her shoulders and shoved her backwards. Surprised, Jyn stumbled back and crashed down onto the bed.

“Hey!” She struggled up to her elbows, but Cassian gave her no time or space to react. He braced a knee on the mattress beside her and tugged at her under shirt. “Cassian, what are you-“ Her voice was cut off as he yanked the shirt over her head and then tossed it on the chair with her coat. Jyn blinked at him in shock. Her partner had an almost obsessive neatness to him; she’d never seen him toss clothing around with no concern for where it landed. He took advantage of her surprise by unhooking her combat bra and also flipping it carelessly onto the growing pile of her clothes. She caught him glancing up at her through his eyelashes, and saw the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

The cool air of the room hit her chest in a rush and Jyn shivered, unconsciously wrapping her arms around her chest and glaring at him. Behind him, the water thundered in the fresher; why was he just letting it run? Surely any hot water would run out before they got in there. “Hey, slow down,” she tried to wiggle back, but he’d already unsnapped her belt and was tugging at her trousers, completely ignoring her. “Cassian!”

“You said you’re freezing,” he replied conversationally, yanking her trousers and underwear all the way off and tossing them on the chair (he still put all her clothes in one pile, a part of her noticed with fond exasperation – even when he was being messy, he was still neat). “I have an idea.”

“I’m onboard with the idea, _Captain_ ,” she rolled her eyes. “But the execution’s a bit, uh, fast.”

“Don’t want you exposed to the cold longer than you have to be,” he told her, and he was definitely smirking at her now.

Jyn narrowed her eyes, and decided that it was damn well time to even the playing field. She reached out for his belt buckle too, but he grabbed her hands and shoved them away. “A moment,” he said calmly. “I think it’s just about done.”

She was about to demand that he tell her exactly what he was doing, but before she could open her mouth, he leaned in and…picked her up. One hand under her back, the other under her legs, and he cradled her to his chest as he rocked up to his feet.

“ _Cassian!_ ” She instinctively latched on to his neck as he heaved her off the bed and turned towards the fresher. Was he trying to act out one of those ridiculous romantic holodrama scenes (from the ridiculous romantic holodrama shows that she absolutely did _not_ watch)? Because she’d never actually had anyone try to sweep her off her feet, but she was pretty sure this wasn’t how it was done. “What the karking hells are you doing?”

“Warming you up,” he said in that same pleasant tone of voice, like he was just making conversation and not stripping her naked and carting her around without so much as a warning.

He walked into the fresher, and Jyn was startled to notice that the shower wasn’t running at all. Instead, there was a large tub – the biggest one Jyn had ever seen, not that it was a high bar – and it was half full with water so hot that she could see steam coming off the surface. “Hang on,” Cassian said, and dropped to one knee, unhooking his hand from under her legs to stick his fingers in the water. Jyn took the opportunity to wiggle free from his grip.

Or she tried to, anyway, but he chuckled and scooped her back up again, and Jyn had about half a second’s warning – “oh no, don’t you _dare_ , you _nerf_ \- ” and then he leaned forward again and dumped her in.

Jyn went under with a mighty splash, and re-emerged flailing and gasping.  Cassian was kneeling by the tub with one elbow propped casually on the edge, smirking, unfussed that his shirt was now soaked. “Better?” he asked in an innocent tone.

“ _Plague rats to make a home in your internal organs_ ,” Jyn spat at him in Huttese.

“ _Venomous plants to sprout from your ears_ ,” he replied coolly, and damn it, his Hutt accent was _still_ better than hers. He reached over and turned off the running water, then sat back on his heels like a fisherman settling by the river, calm and patient.

It… _was_ better, actually. The water was just on the edge of scalding (she could already see her skin turning red) but she could feel the heat working into her stiff muscles, warming her fingers and toes and smoothing some of the knots from her hair.

She scowled at him anyway. It was the principle of the thing. “You could have just told me there was a bath,” she muttered at him rebelliously, still glaring as she sank down as far in the water as she could get – until only her eyes were above the water level.

His mouth twitched, and he looked down and away for a long moment until he turned back and raised an eyebrow at her. “This was more efficient. Didn’t want the water to get cold while you got ready.”

Jyn glared without blinking, and allowed a few bubbles to stream up to the surface from her submerged nose.

That broke him; Cassian leaned his head down to rest against his forearm and laughed.  Jyn pushed herself up again and let her face relax. “You’re a kriffing comedian,” she said flatly, then slumped against the back of the tub and wiggled her toes under the hot water.

“You had a headache all day,” Cassian said quietly, looking up from his arm, and his smile was a little faded now, though no less warm. “Probably why the cold got to you so badly.”

“How did you know?” Jyn had taken care not to rub at her forehead or flinch at loud noises all day, specifically so he would not know about the pounding ache behind her eyes.

The smile faded further. “I’m good at my job, Jyn,” he replied, a little sadly. Then he sighed, looked down at the floor. “Why did you hide it?”

She hesitated, then sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees and letting her head hang a bit. “Don’t know,” she said at last. She looked up at him through her wet hair and shrugged. “Habit, I guess.”

He nodded, then shifted his weight, rising up on his knees and reaching for her. Jyn eyed him, but didn’t move. All he did, however, was run gentle fingers through her hair, tucking it back behind her ears. He slid his hands back to her temples and rubbed small circles against her hairline, then back, over her scalp and down her neck.

It felt wonderful, but Jyn still almost pulled away. _Habit_ , she thought. Learned through experience, for survival, because that had been her life.

But then, a lot of things about Jyn’s life were different now – and that wasn’t a bad thing.

She closed her eyes and tilted to the side, closer in his reach.

Cassian worked his hands over her scalp again, down to her neck, and this time worked his fingers into the tight muscles of her shoulders. Jyn sighed, arching her neck and humming low in her throat, encouraging. His hands faltered a moment, then he pushed himself up and moved to the other end of the tub. Jyn cracked her eyelids to see where he was going, but he simply knelt again and dug his fingers into the muscles of her shoulders from behind this time, giving him better access to her back.

The steam coiled around Jyn’s face and ears, and she leaned back against his hands. “So,” she said at length. “You coming in, or what?”

“I’m not sure there’s enough room.” His voice was still soft, but she could hear the smile back in it.

Jyn considered letting it go, because it really did feel good in the water. But kneeling on that tile could not be good for his spine (which still hurt him from time to time), and his soaked shirt was probably not helping him warm up either. So Jyn took a deep breath, leaned back and submerged under the water again, stretching out as far as she could in the tub. Through the distortion of the water, she saw Cassian watching her, his arms resting on the edge again, his hair falling into his face.

Jyn smiled at him, and arched her back a little under the water, moving slow and deliberate.

Then she pushed herself briskly up, and sat on the edge of the tub, swinging her legs out and grabbing hold of Cassian’s shirt. He let her pull him between her knees willingly, and when she leaned in and crushed her mouth to his, he responded immediately, opening his mouth and letting her bite at his lip.

The small, enclosed space of the fresher was warm from the tub and their body heat, but it was still cooler than the water, and the sudden change made Jyn shiver, her skin dimpling with goosebumps and her nipples drawing tight.

“Here,” Cassian said against her mouth, reaching behind him and yanking a towel from the rack. He draped it around her, but Jyn ignored it, sliding a little closer and pressing warm, wet kisses down his throat. “Jyn,” he groaned when she reached his collar and started to tug it insistently out of the way.

“Bedroom,” Jyn replied shortly, then grinned against his shoulder. “You’ve already got me wet.”

“Funny,” he said, and without warning he picked her up again.

“I can walk, jackass,” Jyn grumbled, but she wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed his jawline hungrily.

“I don’t care,” he replied in the same tone, and then he collapsed down on the bed, making a half-hearted attempt to get the towel under her still wet body. Jyn did absolutely nothing to help him with that particular endeavor, focused instead on finally getting that damned shirt off him.

“Jyn,” he said against her ear. “Are you warm enough yet?”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed. She tugged lightly on his hair until he looked up and met her eyes. “Almost.” She tilted her head, her smile turning wicked; very deliberately, she rolled her hips up against him. “Are you?”

“With you? Always,” he promised, and leaned in to kiss her again.

Yes, by every metric Jyn considered important in her life, things were pretty damn good right now.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is set late in the series, at an indeterminate time after "between your bones and your soul." Song title is from "Warm Water" by Banks.


End file.
